Federation Commander

But, if he buys FC:KB, FC:RB ,and the FCRRB - then he effectively has three copies of the rev 5 rulebook along with those 12 map panels.

If he forgos KB and gets KS... he only has one Rev 5 rulebook, one FCRRB, adn 6 map panels. Then, if he later adds Klingon Attack, Romulan Attack, Tholain Attack, Battleship Attack, an Distant Kingdoms... he'll have 12 more map panels to add to the current crop of 6.

Not everyone plays mega-huge, over-sized battles and needs 50+ map panels...

If you don't have any FC products, you don't need the Reference Rulebook (if you buy the products from our web store, or from a retail store a couple of months from now) since you'll have Revision-5 rulebooks in the products you buy. The Reference rulebook is just a convenient way for existing players to update ALL of their rulebooks for one low price.

Scoutdad wrote:But, if he buys FC:KB, FC:RB ,and the FCRRB - then he effectively has three copies of the rev 5 rulebook along with those 12 map panels.

If he forgos KB and gets KS... he only has one Rev 5 rulebook, one FCRRB, adn 6 map panels. Then, if he later adds Klingon Attack, Romulan Attack, Tholain Attack, Battleship Attack, an Distant Kingdoms... he'll have 12 more map panels to add to the current crop of 6.

Not everyone plays mega-huge, over-sized battles and needs 50+ map panels...

Klingon Space + 6 panels = $60
Klingon Border = $60
So the rule book is essentially "free" . I gave my extra copy to a friend interested in FC.

Those expansions do include map boards but all have terrain printed on them (planets, asteroids, gas giants, webs, etc.) KB and RB map boards are blank.

So, with KB and RB you have a perfect baseline set of 12 blank map panels for 3 panel x 4 panel game boards when using large hexes/counters (3 x 4 seems to be a scenario standard for large hexes/counters) and an extra free rulebook.

The expansion set boards with planets, asteroids, etc. are useful options to augment the basic 3 x 4 layout for special scenarios requiring terrain.

Have never used 50+ map boards personally and only have time for small scale actions (1-3 warships per side). But since most people seem to dislike "floating maps" more map boards would seem to be more convenient.

MajerBlundor wrote: Have never used 50+ map boards personally and only have time for small scale actions (1-3 warships per side). But since most people seem to dislike "floating maps" more map boards would seem to be more convenient.

You are correct, 6 to 12 map panels is more convenient. We combined sets one weekend and did a really huge battle on 69 map panels (3 separate battleboards, each 3 high by 5 long). It was a really strange scenario with multiple fleets from multiple empires duking it out.

We had the two battle boards set-up at opposite ends of a really long paying area. The remaining 24 map panels were set-up as a transit area between the big boards.,,
Battleboard #1 - 12 transit map boards (1high x 12 long), Battleboard #2 - 12 transit map boards - Battleboard #3.

Two opposing fleets on each battleboard... unstable wormholes located on each board (incoming and outgoing portals moved randomly every turn - house rules).
The fleets got sucked in, spit out, and totally separated across all three battleboards.
Some players played it say and used the transit boards to re-connect disparate units... some took a chance wiht the randomness of the wormhole and the dis-orientation that instantaneous ravel caused.

All in all - it was a blast, not not very historic.

Tas - Welcome back to the fold. As you can see, there's a lot of love for the game(s) and a lot of helpful folks here.

On the subject of the counters and map-panels, there are two more alternatives to throw into the mix -

ADB does sell the "Mega-Hex" product, which is nothing but sheets of the gorgeous 1-inch counters. The counters are the same as the ones in the FC products, but the mix of ships is more geared to SFB (i.e. there are things like Tugs, etc., which aren't officially in FedCom).

Another fun toy is the "Space Battle Maps" product, which is a box of the mounted map boards (the same ones as in FedCom). This is another way to get quite a few more map panels without buying another FedCom box set.

The products are pretty modular, so you can mix and match to get the set of supplies you need.

Personally, I bought both boxed FedCom sets (KB and RB), as I wanted the "fluff" in the rulebooks. I did eventually buy both Mega-Hex and Space Battle Maps (the reason being is that I was gearing up to do in-store demos and multi-table play with one of my groups). I don't use all those components most of the time, but it's sure nice to have them when I need them.

One other thing - A lot of the more recent "Attack" expansions for FedCom also include a map-panel as a "freebie". They're in the folio to act as a stiffener. These panels are "defective" in that they got cut in a way that left a bunch of the grey registration lines on the edge (which caused some folks a lot of drama early on). One quick swipe with a Sharpie marker and most folks cant tell the difference when it's on the game table. Regardless, it's a free map panel.

djdood wrote: One other thing - A lot of the more recent "Attack" expansions for FedCom also include a map-panel as a "freebie". They're in the folio to act as a stiffener. These panels are "defective" in that they got cut in a way that left a bunch of the grey registration lines on the edge (which caused some folks a lot of drama early on). One quick swipe with a Sharpie marker and most folks cant tell the difference when it's on the game table. Regardless, it's a free map panel.

Actually, with the evil grey line, even markered out the hexes on either side are the wrong sized. Not a biggy, but anoying, none the less.

pinecone wrote:Actually, with the evil grey line, even markered out the hexes on either side are the wrong sized. Not a biggy, but anoying, none the less.

Say what? They work fine for me.

What pinecone meant was that the ones used as stiffeners were the ones that had been mis-cut. On some of thm, the 5/8 hexes don't line up... on others the 1 1/4 hexes are misaligned.

I've been lucky so far... i use the large hexes 99.999999 percent of the time and everyone I've received has has the 5/8 inch hexes misaligned.

Hmmmm... that makes sense. To be honest, I've never even looked at the 5/8 sides of my boards. It's minis or nothing in my group. I guess I've been lucky in that mine have all been usable. Can't beat the price, either way.

Guys, thanks very much all all the good advice, tips and warm welcomes.

I must admit, I love fluff and background material. In fact, I kept my 20+ old Captains Logs and other supplements for the fluff and articles. It would seem then that buying each supp in turn is best so I get all that flavour.

Given my objective of introducing my son into the game, I had a good think about the bestw ay to do this. I It would seem to me that single turn arming weapons would be the best starting point, which poroably means Klingons initially. I must admit that I am a Gornophile so The Romulan border wont be too far behind, either will Briefing No 2 for the "TV years".

I'm very keen on using the bigger hexes and nicer counters, which will also be much more appealing to my kids (OK, so I'm a kid at heart too!)

Whats the recommendation for the format style? Unbound and punched in order to use a folder? Or bound for ruggedness?

So I'll have to bide my time, await for Rev 5 rulebook to make it here in a few week's time and in the meantime have a game or two using First Missions. I'll let know how it goes!

cheers and thanks!

All of my stuff eventually ended up 3-hole drilled for binders.

Tas wrote: Whats the recommendation for the format style? Unbound and punched in order to use a folder? Or bound for ruggedness?

Now that the option is available, I order my rule books un-bound, un-punched. This lets me make a photo-copy for use in game and still allows me to put the originals in sheet protectors and 3-ring binders.

Thanks for the tip, thats what I did with my old Commander's Edition SFB stuff

I found my old stash of SFB stuff and did a quick inventory:

Introduction to SFB
Captain's Edition Rulebook
FPF (Module K)
Battleships (Module R5)
Fighters (ModuleJ)
Tournaments (Module T) and ournament Tactcis (Module D2)
Marines! (Module P4)
Captain's Tactics Manual
Scenario Book (Module S1) and Scenario-1 (Module P3)
Nexus 7,8,9,19
Captain's Logs 1,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15

There must be some more somewhere - well I hope there is because my rulebook is in a Binder and runs out in section R. I vaguely recall splittling the remainder into a second binder as it was all mostly scenarios and non tactical rules.

So while I wait for the updated Border sets to reach Australia, I'll amuse myslef rediscovering the old Captain's Logs